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Police identify Calif. shooting suspect as Elliot Rodger

Santa Barbara Police identified Elliot Rodger, 22, as the man suspected of killing six people during a Friday night drive-by rampage and also stabbing his three roommates prior to the killing spree.
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A previous version of this story incorrectly identified a victim. Veronika Elizabeth Weiss, 19, was shot outside the Alpha Phi sorority house near the UCSB campus.

ISLA VISTA, Calif. — Santa Barbara Police Saturday identified Elliot Rodger, 22, as the man suspected of killing six people during a Friday night rampage of stabbing and shooting near a local university.

Rodger stabbed to death three roommates at his apartment before starting his shooting spree, said Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown at a news conference.

"It was a pretty horrific crime scene," Brown said of the murder scene at the apartment.

After slaying his roommates, Rodger went to a sorority house and knocked loudly on the door, Brown said. No one answered. He then shot three women outside the house, killing two and injuring the third, the sheriff said.

Twice deputies engaged him in gunfire, the first time wounding him in the hip as he drove, Brown said. The rampage ended after the young man exchanged fire with deputies and hit a bicyclist before crashing into parked cars.Rodger then fired on random people at multiple other locations nearby over a 10-minute period, police said.

"It would appear he took his own life at this point," Brown said.

Thirteen people were injured — eight from gunshot wounds, four from being hit by his car and one who suffered a minor injury whose exact cause was not clear yet, Brown said.

Brown added that Rodger had three semi automatic handguns--a Glock 34 and two Sig Sauer P226s-- as well as more than 400 rounds of ammo when he died.

Students gathered for a candlelight vigil on the University of California Santa Barbara campus Saturday night to remember those killed Friday night during a rampage in nearby Isla Vista.(Photo: Robyn Beck, AFP/Getty Images)

The suspected shooter purchased all his firearms legally. They were registered to him.

Rodger was found dead in his BMW -- hours after a disturbing video titled "Elliot Rodger's retribution" was posted, a manifesto authorities said was a clear sign of "premeditated mass murder." Rodger's father, a Hollywood director, and his family say they warned cops about disturbing videos weeks before the shooting rampage their son committed near the University of California-Santa Barbara

Police had interacted with the suspected murderer before Friday.

Officers interviewed Rodger on April 30 in a welfare check requested by his family, Brown said. Officers concluded he was "polite, courteous" and downplayed any difficulties. Rodger told officers he had problems in his social life.

Authorities did not find a history of guns, but did say Rodger had trouble making friends.

Deputies also encountered Rodger earlier this year when he accused a roommate of stealing three candles, and in another case case in which he claimed to be beaten but deputies suspected he was the aggressor.

Rodger detailed his plans in an extensive 141-page manifesto released Saturday and said he narrowly missed being found out when the officers knocked on his door.

Rodger expressed relief that his apartment wasn't searched because they would have found his weapons and his writings.

When recounting his thinking about whether he should kill his father, Rodger expressed a sliver of acknowledgment that his plot, which included killing other family members, was wrong.

"I didn't want it to come to this," Rodger said. "I desperately wanted a way out." He then immediately talks about his mother giving him a new car — a BMW coupe.

Meanwhile, Alan Shifman, attorney for Peter Rodger, assistant director of The Hunger Games series, said the family had not yet seen the young man's body.

Shifman said family members called authorities several weeks ago after being alarmed by YouTube videos "regarding suicide and the killing of people."

A YouTube video posted Friday in which a young man complains of rejection by women appears to be connected to the attack, said Brown, who called the attack "the work of a madman."

"We're analyzing both written and videotaped evidence that suggests that this atrocity was a premeditated mass murder," Brown said Saturday.

Later, Brown added that the online videos Rodger made were "chilling."

Several hundred people gathered for a candlelight vigil at the University of California, Santa Barbara, on Saturday night to honor the victims of a shooting rampage that left a total of seven people dead, including the gunman. (May 24)
AP

"It's very apparent the severe extent of how disturbed Mr. Rodger was," the sheriff said.

Investigators say they believe a gunman driving a black BMW acted alone in the shootings.

Brown said the suspect exchanged gunfire twice with deputies, and then drove off and crashed into a parked car.

Deputies found the suspect inside the BMW dead from a gunshot wound to the head. A semiautomatic handgun was recovered.

A sobbing Richard Martinez said Saturday his son Christopher Ross Martinez, 20, was killed in the shooting.

"Our family has a message for every parent out there: You don't think it will happen to your child until it does," Martinez said. "His death has left our family broken."

Police confirmed Martinez was shot at the IV Deli Mart in Isla Vista, the community next to the university. Officials also identified two other people among the six killed Friday: Veronika Elizabeth Weiss, 19, and Katherine Breann Cooper, 22, both shot outside the Alpha Phi sorority house near the UCSB campus.

On Saturday, many of the streets of downtown Isla Vista remained blocked off and ringed with crime scene tape. Workmen were removing and replacing a large glass storefront window as Santa Barbara County sheriff's deputies blocked the street and sidewalk.

California Highway Patrol Sgt. R.J. Regan said investigators were still processing the crime scenes but that the suspect's crashed car had been removed.

College students stood outside their apartments and on street corners watching police investigators and spectators. Overhead, a helicopter circled.

"I was walking home when it started,'' said Jared Jensen, a sophomore. "We thought it was fireworks, at first in the distance somewhere. ... But we were only a block or two away.''

Flowers are placed through a bullet hole on a window of IV Deli Mart, where part of Friday night's mass shooting took place. Chris Carlson, AP

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The separate shooting scenes resulted in mass confusion, he said. Friends called friends to report activity at one location, only to learn of shootings at others, Jensen and others said.

"We had no idea what was going on at the time,'' Jensen, from the San Francisco area, said.

"This is way beyond what we were expecting,'' said Matt Meyer, a sophomore from the Los Angeles area. "It was clearly the result of a mentally ill person."

John Sherman, a second-year student from San Diego, said he was able to see the crashed car just a short distance from his apartment.

"We didn't know what was going on,'' he said. "Everyone said it was happening at a different place.''

In Rodgers' YouTube video, a young man sitting behind the wheel of a car with tinted windows parked in front of palm trees talks of "loneliness, rejection and unfulfilled desires" and blames women for throwing themselves at "obnoxious brutes" but rejecting him, "the supreme gentleman."

"For the last eight years of my life, since I hit puberty, I've been forced to endure an existence of loneliness, rejection and unfulfilled desires, all because girls have never been attracted to me," Rodger says in the video. "Girls gave their affection and sex and love to other men, never to me."

Rodger's Facebook page and a Web diary titled "Elliot Rodger's Official Blog" identified him as a Santa Barbara City College student and Isla Vista resident.

Most of the Facebook posts from the past year on a page bearing his name show photos of the same young man in the video, including a photo of him behind the wheel of a late-model black BMW coupe, and a few sunsets. Many of the blog posts carry a similar theme of loneliness and unrequited desire as the video.

The license plate on the BMW in one of Rodger's Facebook photos matches the tag on a car photographed by the Independent at the crime scene with a body lying near it.

Another Facebook photo shows Rodger sitting on a bench next to Peter Rodger, who's married to actress Soumaya Akaaboune. Akaaboune had roles in the movie The Green Zone and in Les Vraies Housewives, a French version of the TV reality show Real Housewives shot in Los Angeles.

Isla Vista is a residential area filled mostly with apartments and small homes rented to students. It was the scene of a small riot in the spring during an all-day street party near the beach and campus.